Part 8 (2/2)

For a moment the face on the box only stared, abashed. At last, in a piping voice smaller than usual the picture said, ”The Princess must be having a party.”

If he'd been hoping the picture would resolve his dilemma, Vlemk was disappointed. He should hardly have been surprised. She might look like the Princess, might have the very same intelligence and emotional make-up, but all that those painted blue eyes had ever seen before this walk was the box-painter's studio.

”What shall we do?” she asked.

As Vlemk stood irresolute, the answer was thrust upon them. The ground began to tremble and a sound like distant thunder began to rise from behind a dark clump of trees. A moment later six or seven horses came bounding over a hill into the light of the lanterns, on their backs young highborn men and women in capes and riding hats, returning, with the greyhounds at their heels, from a gallop over the grounds. Not far from where the others stood drinking their champagne, the riders reined in and the horses came trotting up, docile as sheepdogs; then, before the first of the horses had stopped, the greyhounds saw Vlemk and, barking like devils, came shooting out, bounding like deer, toward him. Instantly the hors.e.m.e.n wheeled after them, hurrying to the rescue-or so Vlemk prayed.

The greyhounds came flas.h.i.+ng through the darkness like knives, with astonis.h.i.+ng speed and clarity of purpose, but the hors.e.m.e.n were close behind, shouting stern orders at the dogs and hurried good advice to Vlemk, if only he could have heard what they were shouting. It was a horseman who reached him first; the dogs held back at the last minute. The rider was a tall young man with a moustache, his cape like midnight except for the gleaming pure white of the lining, thrown back jauntily past his shoulder like a wing. He shouted something which Vlemk could not make out, then shouted it again. Now the others came swerving and slanting up around him-one of them, he saw, the Princess. He was suddenly conscious of the late-June warmth and wetness in the air. She did not look at all as she'd looked before, but even with his heart pounding wildly in his throat from the scare they'd given him, Vlemk knew at once what the changes were-the make-up, the hair, the padded square shoulders, the startling spring paleness of skin and the hollowness of her cheeks. Fasting? he wondered. He tried to recall if some religious holiday was at hand. Two of her friends were on the ground now, quieting the dogs. The tall young man with the moustache bent down from the saddle. ”Who are you?” he shouted to Vlemk. ”What are you doing here?”

Vlemk threw a look at the Princess for help, but she kept back, remote and cautious, almost ghostly. Her horse pranced and turned, eager to be gone, and from time to time the Princess glanced back at the people who'd been drinking by the door, now all hurrying in a crowd to find out what was happening. Seeing that there was no other way, Vlemk reached into his pocket and drew out the note, unfolded it with badly shaking fingers, and handed it to the man. The man came close, apparently having difficulty reading it in the moonlight. He half smiled, then wheeled around and trotted his horse to the Princess. ”It's for you,” he said.

The Princess did not reach for it. ”What does it say?”

”You think I read your mail?” he said, smiling like a lover, and held it nearer, insisting that she take it. Vlemk glanced down, full of gloom and a curious detachment, as if the Princess were an acquaintance from some other life and they had both changed completely. His gaze happened to fall on the box. The face was watching the Princess and the man in the moustache with sharp, almost virulent disapproval.

The Princess did take the note at last, giving the man a little smile, half cross, half playful. When she had finished reading she glanced sharply at Vlemk. ”You are Vlemk the box-painter?” she asked, displeased. He nodded. She seemed to make out, now, the box under his arm. She looked around-the people with the champagne gla.s.ses were drawing near-and at last she said, ”Bring him where it's light,” and, without another glance, a.s.suming their obedience, she set off at a trot toward the lanterns. ”I don't like her,” said the picture on the box, emphatically. Vlemk covered the tiny painted mouth with his hand. Now the moustached man was bending down again, reaching to offer Vlemk a lift up and ride. Vlemk stared a moment before he saw what was intended, then shook his head in alarm and hurried on foot after the Princess. When she reached the lanterns she stopped again for a moment and looked back at him, then nodded, as if telling him to follow, and rode straight on to the enormous, arched front door. There she dismounted, gave the reins to a servant, and stood waiting for Vlemk to catch up with her. As soon as he did, panting from exertion and hastily covering the face with the cloth, the Princess said, ”Won't you come inside?” Without waiting for an answer she started up the wide marble stairs.

Vlemk was by this time well aware that by bringing the box to the Princess he had made a mistake. There were social implications he hadn't bothered to think through, implications that now, too late, he recognized as painful to the Princess. Either she must curtly and crudely dismiss him, a poor harmless mute-which was not in her nature-or she must place herself in a position to be laughed at-not a pleasant prospect for a lady so concerned about appearances. Painted boxes were often, in those days, love-gifts, and from the first moment he'd seen her with her friends, Vlemk had known that, even if he had in some sense once loved her, he could not say he loved her now and could hardly imagine recapturing that emotion, though some things about her-the tilt of her head-recalled it, teasingly and faintly, heightening the shock of their mutual change. And so, clearly, he had no business here, certainly no business offering a gift that, given in front of others, had nuances of insult and entrapment, as if one were to offer a lady a dead infant in its coffin, declaring it her own. Even if, as a professional painter of pictures on boxes, he could carry it off-avoid the implications of sentiment that displeased her-there was the matter of the box itself, or, rather, the picture: she, the imitation of the Princess, would not be happy here, G.o.d knew. How much responsibility should one have, he wondered, for a feeling creature that was not, strictly speaking, a creature? Whatever the right answer, the fact remained that feel she did, and her pain and indignation were not easy matters to ignore. Even now as he walked up the marble stairway, followed the Princess and her gathering friends down the long, blue-carpeted, chandeliered hallway, and turned in, behind her, to a room filled with mirrors and figures wrought in gold-a room she had chosen, he recognized at once (knowing her as he did) for the irony it imparted, an irony that defused the effect of his coming and put limits of a kind on the scene she feared (he had forgotten, of course, that she was afraid of his art, afraid of the idea of a painting so perfect it could smile or cry or talk, though of course he had known it, had seen, while exploring her with his brush, that fear of what whimsy might lead to, her terror in the face of the unexpected)-even now, as he sat at the low gla.s.s table in the center of the room, obedient to her command, the m.u.f.fled voice under the cloth was complaining, berating him, insulting the Princess.

”I want to go home,” the tiny voice wailed. ”You've all gone crazy! I don't look like her at all!”

Vlemk raised his eyebrows, closed his eyes, and pressed one finger down gently to stop the painted mouth. He set the box on the table, still in its black velvet cloth, and waited for the guests to gather and the Princess to take her place. It was not strictly true, apparently, that the moustached young man had been too scrupulous to read Vlemk's note. On every side of him Vlemk could hear whispered speculations on whether or not the painted picture would talk. At last a servant pulled back the Princess's chair, his head bowed in the way people bow when they quickly and casually say grace, and the Princess seated herself, unsmilingly, opposite Vlemk. When the room had quieted, Vlemk, with infinite weariness, scorning himself for this obedience to mindless ritual but seeing no way out, boxed in by the illusory infinity of mirrors, bent forward and removed the black cloth. The Princess for an instant looked not at the box but at Vlemk the box-painter, as if a.s.suring herself that, like her, he meant harm. Then her gaze dropped to the box, and she seemed to pale. The room was faintly humming. After a moment she looked up at the man at her left, the old servant. ”Do I actually look like that?” she asked quietly, her voice so sweet that Vlemk's heart wrenched. The servant seemed to muse, bending closer, two fingers on the corner of his spectacles-for all one could tell, he was sincere and honest. At last he said, ”I'm not sure, Your Highness. I don't really see the resemblance.”

Vlemk smiled.

”Stupid, stupid, stupid,” whispered the picture, making sure that no one heard but her maker.

Now the Princess was looking hard at Vlemk the box-painter. ”You say it talks?” she said.

”She talks if she wishes to,” he wanted to say, but being unable to speak, Vlemk simply nodded.

Then, to Vlemk's horror, the picture said crossly, with undisguised contempt, ”So you're the famous beautiful Princess.”

A gasp went through the room, and the Princess's face went blank. People began whispering; here and there someone laughed; others began shus.h.i.+ng them for silence, hoping to hear more from the box.

When everything was still again, the picture said: ”You find your image unflattering, Princess?” The painted face paused, waiting for full attention. ”Perhaps you've been painted too often by people who 'respect' you.” The picture smiled.

The Princess, to her credit, was as calm as stone. To Vlemk she said, ”Is the picture always so insulting?”

Vlemk nodded, then in fairness shook his head, then shrugged. He rolled his eyes in the direction of the box and hoped that it would soon learn resignation and, if only for his sake, make peace.

At this moment there was a commotion, and, looking up, Vlemk saw-guided by the eyes of all the others-that on a balcony high on the wall behind him, a balcony he'd failed to notice before, a golden door was opening. After a moment a man in a wheelchair came carefully through the door, a.s.sisted beyond his need by eager servants. Vlemk knew the face at once, ravaged and sorrowful, infinitely patient yet capable of flying into rages over trifles, the face of a man of keen intelligence, plagued by some constant, nagging pain and bearing up as well as he's able. It was the King, whose picture was on the coin. He seemed at death's door. His eyes were slits, his body so wasted beneath the splendid clothes that a small child might have carried him in her arms like a doll. He tipped his head-he wore no crown-as if gazing down at the company, then feebly waved his bejewelled hand as a sign that the business of the evening, whatever it might be, should go on as before. The people bowed and bent their knees to him, some with tears in their eyes; he solomnly nodded back; and then, gradually, all eyes returned to the box.

The Princess said, ”Vlemk, my friend, whatever the personality of this toy you've created, there can be no denying that you're an amazing painter of boxes. We accept your gift with pleasure.”

Vlemk sadly nodded, ignoring the look of wild outrage from the box, the tiny wail of ”Toy indeed!” If he closed his eyes, he knew he would see his friend the Princess as she'd looked that day when she'd refused, out of kindness, to throw him a coin from the carriage. All that was a long time ago, and Vlemk (so he told himself) had no regrets. Nevertheless, he was careful to keep his eyes open, and pressing his hands on the arms of the chair, he prepared to get up and leave.

But the picture on the box was not so pleased with the way things were going, and spoke again: ”If you find me unflattering, you should look at the pictures in his studio. He's painted you again and again, Princess. Perhaps in one of the others you'd find something to your taste.”

The strength went out of Vlemk's arms, and he sat as he was.

”Is this true?” asked the Princess, both interested and uneasy.

Like images in a nightmare, Vlemk's dreadful pictures of the Princess rose up before his eyes. It was not that he believed them false, exactly-indeed, the drooping eyelid he had predicted was now an actuality, at least when the Princess was angry. Nevertheless, the pictures were not things he desperately wanted her to see. He tried to think whether to nod or shake his head, and at last he pretended he hadn't heard her.

”I must admit,” said the Princess almost apologetically, as if admitting that the fault might indeed be her own, ”though I'm naturally impressed by the picture you've brought me, I'm not quite sure I see the likeness.”

A noise came from the balcony, and instantly everyone looked up. ”It speaks,” cried the King in a wheedling, childish voice, banging his tiny fist on the arm of the wheelchair. ”Think about that, girl! It's real enough to speak!” Instantly a terrible coughing fit took him, blood fell from his nose, and his servants rushed him-shuddering and shaking and snapping his teeth-from the room.

6.

Though she hadn't admitted it the Princess was disturbed by the picture Vlemk had left her, and as the spring days pa.s.sed, her discomfort in its presence increased. She would have had it destroyed if she could bring herself to do so, but the thought nagged at her that facing the whole matter squarely might somehow be important. Moreover, the idea of destroying the picture, even when it attacked her with its vulgar little tongue, made her tremble with superst.i.tious alarm. If she threw it in the fire, might that not be a kind of murder, even though the substance of the creature she destroyed was just paint? And there was this, though she hardly dared think of it: as the flames leaped up around the picture, destroying it, might not she suddenly feel an onslaught of mysterious heat-might she not, in fact... She refused to let the thought complete itself.

Sometimes, if she was lucky, she was able to catch the picture in its sleep, and could gaze at the image thoughtfully for long periods, as she could never have gazed at her image in the mirror, for then the eyes were of course always open and every flicker of thought was reflected, so that nothing was to be trusted, she could never get inside herself. It had struck her as true of many people-the man with the moustache was only one-that what they saw as most interesting or charming in themselves was never in fact what was best in them: their finest expressions, their most beautiful aspects, were things unknown to them, because never shown in any mirror. She could see that the man with the moustache, for example-a prince who was considered by the kingdom's chief ministers to be an excellent match-had been persuaded by his mirror that his n.o.blest expression was the one in which he lifted an eyebrow in ironic amus.e.m.e.nt. Personally she found that supercilious look downright offensive. She could imagine how tiresome and stupid it would look when he was eighty. What drew the Princess's heart to the man-despite her displeasure at being treated as a brood mare, an ambush piece in a political chess game-was the look of childish perplexity that sometimes came over him, a look she was sure he'd never seen on himself and would have done almost anything to avoid.

Though at first she'd been convinced that the box-painter's image was nothing at all like her-a surprising lapse in the box-painter's art or a proof that his manner of living had done damage to his brain-she had gradually begun to revise her opinion, examining the image when the eyes were closed. She saw blue lights in the temples that vaguely frightened her: she was more mortal than she thought. She saw, in addition to the many things that pleased her, little troublesome hints of cruelty, vanity, and stinginess. She began to think the portrait was accurate, and she was filled with a feeling like moths fluttering in her chest.

It was worse, of course, when the picture on the box was awake. It would sit watching her, smug as a cat, or it would say things she never would have dreamed of saying; that is, things she would never have said to herself even in a dream. By the slightest twist of a phrase, the picture on the box could make her heart turn to ice. The most innocent remark-”You do have your little ways, don't you?”-spoken in her own unmistakable voice (unmistakable to her), with her own secret ironies ringing down and down, could emotionally disable the Princess for a week. Her anguish at such moments was so bewildering and complex she could hardly make out what it was that she felt; she could only go to bed and weep. What the box said to her was for one thing so infuriatingly stupid, which meant, she knew, that she, the Princess, was for all her fine airs stupid, tiresome, in fact worthless. Though she was outwardly young, the tedious cliches with which the box attacked her-her own cliches, her own forms of attack-revealed to her that nothing was any longer new about her, the prettily painted box might as well have been her casket. At the same time, what the box said was true, however monstrously unfair-undeniably true. The picture on the box hated her; that was the gist of it. She hated herself. She needed healing, needed the touch of some loving magician who would transform her, return her to her childhood innocence, but who could love her? And if anyone did-the Prince, for example-could an intelligent woman give her heart to such a fool? There were plenty all around her who were willing to give her praise, plenty to whom she could play the Good Princess like a skillful actress, hating herself all the more as she played the role. But there was no one who could silence the voice of the truth-telling box. Even when the picture on the box was quiet, like a watchful animal, a murderer biding his time, it seemed to the Princess that it could fill all the high, square room with its crackling contempt. The picture hated her; if that was all there was to it, she would have been ruined, and that would have been that.

But the picture on the box had another side to it. Sometimes it spoke its emotions without thinking, forgetting its hatred and simply responding to the warmth of the sunlight pouring through the window, the music of the songbirds, or the beauty of the wheatfields sloping away toward the river to the west of the palace. She, the Princess, would feel herself splaying anew to the warmth of the summer, or noticing again, as she hadn't in years, how lovely the wheatfields were, yellowing into season. That voice too, the voice that gave her unthinking and unstinting praise, was unmistakably her own, and the Princess was in those moments as pleased with herself-however briefly and unsurely-as a child who's been given some wonderful gift for no reason.

The feeling was not all sweetness. It inevitably heightened in the Princess's mind the disparity between what she felt to be her best self and knew to be her worst. One day, for instance, walking in the garden with the Prince who wore the moustache, pointing out to him the glow of a blooming tea-rose, she was suddenly overwhelmed by anxiety, wondering which was the truer feeling, the innocent delight which had sprung the remark or the manipulative instinct that had turned it to a ploy in their game of political-romantic approchement.

”As lovely as your eyes,” said the Prince, idiotically.

”Are my eyes red, then?” asked the Princess, lowering her lashes and giving him a smile.

”I was really thinking of your cheeks,” said the Prince, with that look of childish vexation and befuddlement she usually liked on him. Today she was only annoyed by it-annoyed partly, if she told herself the truth, by the virginal innocence it revealed in him, an innocence she could not match. ”Is it not true,” she asked herself angrily, ”that the Prince's remark was stupid and manipulative?-aesthetically stupid, a floundering metaphor, and both politically and s.e.xually manipulative? Why should a woman's cheeks (or eyes) be celebrated for their redness, as would a child's, and not a man's?”-for her Prince would be insulted beyond words, she knew, if she should seek to flatter him by praise of his pretty, red cheeks. (They were red, in fact, and for a manic instant she thought of trying it.) Yet alas, both the stupidity and the attempt at manipulation came bubbling from the Prince in the moustache as innocently as water from a well, as unconsidered and open-hearted as grapes on a grapevine or pink and blue hollyhocks blooming beside a farmer's brick house.

”Are you all right?” asked the Prince with a look of alarm. Her face was flushed-as red as a rose, he might have said if he'd thought of it-and for no clear reason there were tears in her eyes.

”My dear, dear Princess,” he said, in panic now, ”is it something I said?”

”It's nothing,” said the Princess, and put the tips of her fingers to her forehead.

”Perhaps we'd better go inside,” said the Prince, and gave an irritable glance up past his shoulder, as if the heavens' over-brightness were at fault.

”Yes, perhaps we'd better,” the Princess said.

At the door to her room they parted with a touch of hands, the Princess promising to be out again soon, as soon as she'd had a little rest. The minute the door was closed, she hurried to her bed and lay down with her head on the pillow, one hand draped limply across her forehead.

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